


sometimes all you need is a chance

by Shadow_Bringer



Category: Naruto
Genre: M/M, Time Travel, Time travel from an outsider’s perspective, and from an insiders perspective, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24010294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Bringer/pseuds/Shadow_Bringer
Summary: Their ledgers are dripping with the bloody red and black of their sins. They hold onto each other despite their mistakes because they are all that’s left. They had done so many things wrong, had fucked everything up more than once, but... but sometimes all you need is a chance, andeverythingchanges.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi & Nohara Rin & Uchiha Obito, Hatake Kakashi/Nohara Rin, Hatake Kakashi/Nohara Rin/Uchiha Obito, Hatake Kakashi/Uchiha Obito, Nohara Rin/Uchiha Obito
Comments: 10
Kudos: 187





	1. White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Kakashi meets him, he’s four and his father has just died.
> 
> The second time, he stumbled across the man at a training field.
> 
> The third time had been a month later.

The first time Kakashi meets him, he’s four and his father has just died. He had been wandering, aimless and unable to return to the house he had been raised. He was tired and emotionally raw and just plain numb. He had bumped into the man by accident and had muttered an approximation of an apology but the man had snagged his arm before he could go on, pulling him back to look him in the eye.

 _You look hungry_ , the man had said. He’s not sure how the man had gotten him to a restaurant, by the time he’s come back to himself, he’s digging into his food. The man, so clearly Uchiha with his black eyes (eye- he had a patch over one socket, he had never asked what happened, too afraid of the answer he would get) and matching hair, had watched him with sad, sad eyes, doing little more than push his food around on his plate. When Kakashi had finished his meal, the man had paid and gave him a long, hard look.

 _You need somewhere to stay_ , he said and it hadn’t been a question. Kakashi was glad, because he didn’t think he could have dealt with a question, not when he was so close to just- breaking. The man had brought him to an apartment, let him cling as he finally allowed himself to mourn, and had soothed him until he had fallen into a dreamless sleep.

In the morning, the man was gone with only a note saying that the apartment was _his_ , now. The apartment had been rented out for three years and Kakashi had cried in the privacy of his room for this man he barely knew who showed him more kindness than anyone else in his short life (anyone except his father but Sakumo- he had _abandoned him,_ had let him down when he needed his father more than ever and he couldn’t forgive that, not so soon after the man had given up on redemption, on life, on _Kakashi himself_ ).

* * *

The second time, he stumbled across the man at a training field. He hadn’t been training, just sitting atop the middle of three wooden posts, staring unseeingly at the ground. Kakashi had watched him for a long moment, wanting to thank the man for what he had done only a week before. The light of the setting sun had cast strange shadows on his scars, painting his hair a blood red. Then, the man had noticed him, head snapping up with a fierce glare in his lone eye. The Uchiha’s gaze landed on him and he had softened, offering a warm smile.

 _Kakashi_ , he had said fondly. It had struck him odd at the time, for the man to be so fond after a single meeting where all Kakashi had done was cry and be a general nuisance.

 _Uchiha-san_ , he had returned quietly.

 _You’re in the academy aren’t you?_ He had mused, _tell me about it._ Kakashi had, words spilling from him unbidden. He couldn’t stop it until he had said all he could but the man had never seemed put upon, had never stopped him. He had merely nodded along, offering quiet opinions when there was an opening, listening loyally when there wasn’t.

 _There’s more to life than rules and regulations_ , he had said, when Kakashi was finished. _You don’t have to go through life alone_. The man had left him them, disappearing into the forest around them before Kakashi could answer him. Say that the rules are there to be followed, that not following them just ends up hurting everyone. There’s nothing good about breaking the rules.

After all, look where it got Hatake Sakumo. Dead in a pool of blood, his own sword through his gut, and an orphan kid left all alone in an unforgiving world.

* * *

The third time had been a month later. Kakashi had been wandering the marketplace, holding the money he’s sure the Uchiha had given him, at some point. He had caught sight of black hair and scars and had turned, ready to make his way over to the man. He has paused, then, his breath stuck in his chest and his heart in his throat. Silver hair and grey eyes. A Hatake but that shouldn’t be possible, not when Kakashi is the last left of his clan. The man beside his Uchiha had a scar running over one of his eyes and Kakashi realizes with a jolt that it’s the same eye that his Uchiha had lost.

The implication, his assumption, had sat heavily in his stomach and he had swallowed thickly, turning from the pair. He pushes from his mind the small smiles the men had shared, like they were the only ones around, pushed down the uncertainty and fear (not his Uchiha, not him, please it’s all he has left, no one else can _have him-_ ), and he leaves without looking back.

* * *

_Train me_ , he says the next time he meets his Uchiha. The man had hesitated, his stare turning abruptly intense. Kakashi returns his gaze determinedly. Finally, the Uchiha sighs, dragging one gloved hand down his face.

 _I wouldn’t be a good teacher_ , he said. Kakashi bites down the disappointment harshly.

 _Train me_ , he repeats. _Please._ The addition makes the Uchiha pauses, biting down on his lip.

 _I- alright. Alright._ Kakashi’s lip curls into vicious pride. That fake Hatake wants his Uchiha? Fine. But Kakashi isn’t letting the man go without a fight.

* * *

His Uchiha shows up on an irregular schedule with help Kakashi with his training. He comes roughly once a week, longer disappearances signaling missions (during these he’s always waiting with bated breath- no one knows he knows his Uchiha, if the man dies, he won’t know, he’ll never know).

Every once in a while, the man slips. He twists halfway through a move that Kakashi wouldn’t have been able to dodge or block, he moves as though expecting someone to be by his side, his eye flashes red. He never gets a good look at the man’s sharingan- it’s not active long enough -but he understands why the man had been so hesitant.

His Uchiha forgets. Forgets where he is, forgets Kakashi isn’t an enemy. Never long enough to do anything but it happens. Kakashi wonders just where the man thinks he is, in those split seconds. He doesn’t ask.

* * *

He sees his Uchiha when Namikaze Minato becomes his mentor. The man had smiled and congratulated him but the expression had been strained, sad in a way. Kakashi realizes, suddenly, he’s never seen his Uchiha interact with anyone beyond the fake Hatake. With a man as kind and friendly as his Uchiha, he wonders what that could mean (he’s not an idiot, he knows most of his Uchiha’s team must be dead, if not all of them, but even that shouldn’t have made the man draw into himself so much)(he ignores the hypocrisy of these thoughts, his own behavior a twisted mirror of his Uchiha’s).

 _I can’t teach you anymore, now that M- Namikaze-san is your sensei,_ the man said. Kakashi had pushed and badgered but his Uchiha held firm with explanations regarding Namikaze’s right and, when that fails to convince Kakashi, obscure laws restricting random jounin from teaching genin without explicit permission from the sensei. He had fallen silent then, angry that his Uchiha would use his respect for (obsession with) the laws binding shinobi against him. His Uchiha had merely seemed amused with Kakashi’s silent treatment.

The man stays the night for the first time since Kakashi was four, broken by his father’s choice. He sleeps on the couch, refusing to take the bed even when Kakashi breaks his silent treatment in order to insist. In the morning, he stays just long enough for breakfast, tense and agitated, before he leaves.

Kakashi can do nothing more than watch him go with a frown.

* * *

It’s several nerve-wracking, distracted months before his Uchiha shows up again. Minato-sensei had been badgering him about the issue but Kakashi had remained tight-lipped, unwilling to share his Uchiha even with his warm sensei. His Uchiha had shown up at training ground three just before Kakashi’s training with his sensei had finished. The man had paused, apparently caught off guard by their presence.

 _Kakashi-kun_ , he had greeted, almost warily, _...Namikaze-san._ Kakashi forces down his initial rush of excitement and relief (his Uchiha isn’t dead, thank the Sage, he had been gone for _so long-_ ).

 _Uchiha-san,_ Kakashi had returned. Minato-sensei had blinked down at him owlishly, apparently surprised by what little warmth had managed to snake into his voice.

 _I wasn’t aware this training ground was in use, I apologize,_ his Uchiha said, his voice oddly tight. He was carefully avoiding looking at Minato-sensei, Kakashi had noticed. Minato-sensei waved his Uchiha off, smiling disarmingly.

 _We were just leaving,_ Minato-sensei had paused, there, before barreling on, _would you like to join us for lunch?_ The man had hesitated and Kakashi knew in a moment Minato-sensei was going to be turned down. Then, his Uchiha met his gaze and he could see the other’s resolve crumble.

Lunch is an awkward affair. Kakashi refuses to say more than one or two syllable responses, too focused on keeping his face a secret from the two older shinobi. Minato-sensei has trouble keeping his Uchiha talking, the black-haired man curled into himself in an odd way Kakashi hadn’t been witness to before this. When they finally split for the day, his Uchiha practically flees. Kakashi can see the fake Hatake drop down by his Uchiha’s side the moment the man leaves the restaurant and he narrows his eyes.

 _He was an... interesting man,_ Minato-sensei said hesitantly, _how do you know him?_

 _He saved me,_ Kakashi says shortly, before he can think it through. He goes over the words and finds that they aren’t untrue. He very likely would have followed his father through the veil due to a lack of self-care, had his Uchiha not snapped him out of that numb state he had been in.

Minato-sensei doesn’t push any further.

* * *

When Minato-sensei is assigned an actual, three person team, Kakashi is simultaneously put off and intrigued by Uchiha Obito. The Uchiha reminds him of his Uchiha, in an odd way, and the boy isn’t unintelligent, for all he acts like a blundering fool. He catches on to things quickly but his fighting style is reminiscent of someone who had bad depth perception, as if he was a bit blind in one eye. Minato-sensei had asked him about this, at one point, and he had turned red.

 _Nii-san lost his eye when he was younger,_ Obito had explained, _I guess I sorta picked it up from him._ Minato-sensei had blinked in surprise and the his brow had furrowed in confusion.

 _I didn’t know you had an older brother, Obito-kun_ , Minato-sensei pushes carefully. Obito goes more red, a feat Kakashi hadn’t believed possible.

 _I don’t but Nii-san seemed to fit him so I started callin’ him that,_ Obito makes a face as he continues, _‘course he got all sappy on me the first time I said it an’ he refused to stop hugging me and pretend-cryin’ on me but I guess it stuck. Somehow._ Rin had laughed at that and even Minato-sensei had chuckled but Kakashi merely tilts his head, his eyes narrowing. Obito hadn’t said his ‘Nii-san’s’ name, had described behavior no Uchiha would be caught _dead_ doing and it makes Kakashi... curious. Suspicious.

* * *

The Kannabi Bridge Mission was a mess. Kakashi lost an eye, Obito got crushed by a rock, Kakashi gained a sharingan. Kakashi also gained and lost his first friend in the span of two minutes but he’s desperately trying not to think of that part. He can barely hold his own against the enemy shinobi as it is, scrambling to get to his sensei’s special kunai. He’s sobbing. He knows he’s sobbing. He can feel the tears on his skin, the heaving of his chest. He’s numb, though, can’t feel the exhausting sadness that’s causing him to sob in the first place.

Rin is struggling. _Kakashi_ is struggling, but Rin is more important. Rin’s safety was Obito’s last request (and that _burns_ , tears at his lungs and heart and he doesn’t know _why_ -). Then there’s a black blur soaring past him into the cave (the cave where Obito is _dying_ , buried under an avalanche of rocks) and the fake Hatake is in front of him, killing the enemy shinobi with ease. Kakashi only has eyes for Rin, though, too focused on her, too focused on making sure she’s safe and _alive._

He doesn’t know when he and Rin succumb to their physical and chakra and mental exhaustion but he wakes up in Konoha’s hospital. He feels sick because he doesn’t _deserve_ to be healed, not after leaving Obito to die but-

But Obito’s not dead.

Obito is laying in the bed next to Kakashi’s, barely breathing but at least he’s _breathing._

Rin is in the bed on his other side and Minato-sensei in slouched, dead asleep, in the visitor chair. He debates waking his sensei but he figures the man getting some actual rest is more important than the crick that he’s sure to have in his back. Kakashi pushes himself sluggishly into a sitting position, his eyes (eye, one has a bandage over it- the sharingan, he remembers, and he wonders if it was returned to Obito, since the boy isn’t actually dead anymore) catching on a small piece of paper.

 _Sorry we were late,_ it said in a vaguely familiar chicken scratch, _we had meant to stop it entirely, but we couldn’t get there quite in time. But hey, I figure you’ve finally realized why rules and regulations aren’t the only thing available to you._ His Uchiha, he realizes. His eye slides back over to Obito. Or, one of them, at least.

(Later, he thinks on the odd wording of the letter but he can think of nothing. There’s no way for his Uchiha to have known what was going to happen.

...right?)

* * *

The three of them are as inseparable as the Sannin and had petitioned the Hokage to keep it that way. Kakashi wasn’t sure he would be able to last if he wasn’t with his team on every mission they went on, making sure they were safe. Obito had offered much the same explanation. And Rin? Well, Rin had looked at them, sighed, and had told them that if she wasn’t with them, they’d surely get themselves killed doing something stupid and self-sacrificing. The insulting thing was that they couldn’t even refute her words.

They stay with Minato-sensei for the most part, though they get their fair share of missions away from their sensei.

They spend most nights together, as well. They rotate through homes, staying at Obito’s the least due to the Uchiha’s general distaste of Kakashi and at Kakashi’s apartment the most since Rin still lives with her civilian father. They hear the rumors. Rumors about their relationship as a team and exactly how deep it goes. They... aren’t entirely sure the rumors are wrong. Obito’s always had a crush on Rin but now it’s changed, matured in some way. Rin doesn’t quite crush on Obito but it’s a near thing. Kakashi isn’t blind towards how they act towards him, either, nor is he ignorant of the way he’s his feelings run deeper for them then the average friendship should denote.

Of course, Team 7 is hardly average in any way.

Rin is just as proficient with healing techniques as Tsunade, capable of feats of extreme control no other medic nin would dare attempt, Obito’s surprisingly efficient at using his sharingan, and Kakashi’s just as feared for his lightning jutsus as his father was. Some people fancy them a sort of Sannin 2.0 but they feel different. They aren’t the Sannin, they’d never be able to go toe to toe with shinobi that powerful, but they _are_ the best stealth, infiltration, and assassination team the village has. They can get in and out of places in hours that a normal team would take weeks to case and plan for. The only reason they _can_ , however, is because they have each other to lean on and bounce off of. Apart, the three of them are formidable, but much, _much_ easier to take out. Not that they’re ever apart, anymore. They learned their lesson and they refuse to take a repeat course.

* * *

_Oh_ , Kakashi breathes, watching the Uchiha he had claimed as his and the fake Hatake (Obito’s mysterious ‘nii-san’, apparently) whirl in a dance of blood and biting metal. There’s an old sword scar over the silver-haired man’s eye, a matching eyepatch over his Uchiha’s missing eye. He side eyes Obito, who seems oblivious to what Kakashi has discovered. Rin is healing a Konoha shinobi, too distracted to take notice of the two forces of nature in front of them.

He wonders what happened, what was so terrible that he and Obito had gone to these lengths. He thinks about the lack of a third shinobi, the missing member of the usual set up. He thinks about his Uchiha’s reaction to Minato-sensei. He thinks about the slips, the milliseconds his Uchiha would forget, and panic and fear in the black eye when he was with Kakashi for too long. He smiles, a bitter twist of lips.

His Uchiha, indeed.


	2. Black

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obito never understood the importance the Uchiha put in family. He’s an orphan and while most of his clanmates treat him kindly, _most_ is different from _all_. So no, he never really understood what was so great about family.

Obito never understood the importance the Uchiha put in family. He’s an orphan and while most of his clanmates treat him kindly, _most_ is different from _all_. So no, he never really understood what was so great about family. That’s not to say he doesn’t care about people, he does, just... never to the extent the older generations love to wax poetry about. A love that burns you up from the inside, that changes something in you so intrinsically that you can’t live without it. A love that will drive you mad if you lose it.

Mad like Uchiha Madara, who lost his beloved younger brother.

Really, someone to aspire to be. Of course, then someone had to go and shatter all of his very determined thoughts. He met the silver-haired man (not old, despite his hair, even if his eyes say he’s old) at the memorial stone. He had gone to show his respect for his parents, something he does about once a week. This man, however, isn’t even looking at the stone. He’s sitting pressed up against it, staring up at the sky.

 _Hello!_ He said, cheerful as ever. The man rolled his neck to peer at him from one, stormy grey eye.

 _Yo_ , the man says, and then he disappears. Obito files the encounter away as just another meeting with another strange jounin. Konoha has plenty of them, after all.

* * *

Obito meets the man again and again at the memorial stone. He’s never looking at the stone, always away, and Obito wonders if the people he’s mourning are even _on_ the stone. He certainly doesn’t act like they are. They don’t speak to each other. There’s no reason to. The man is usually leaving when Obito gets there, any way (or maybe he’s leaving _because_ Obito’s there, few people like to have their sadness on full display, after all).

Still, he can’t help but be curious. The man isn’t there _every_ time Obito shows up at the stone, but it’s often enough and consistent enough that he’s growing worried. He could go to the stone at almost any time and find the man there and that’s- that’s _not_ healthy.

And... the man is skinny. Some of that may be accounted for from build but he’s _really_ skinny. He always looks tired, some days more than others but it’s always _there_. Always drifting below the surface.

Obito resolves himself and decided that he’s gotta do something about it, since clearly no one else is.

* * *

He starts carrying an extra bento with him when he goes to the memorial stone. Getting the food to his mysterious company is more difficult and he’s sure the man is only humouring him. They go on like this for several weeks before Obito finally bucks up and drags the shinobi to an actual dining establishment.

The man only seems amused but he’s at least grateful the man is willing to go along with his harebrained scheme to get the man to actually take care of himself properly. Of course, the man does seem a bit exasperated that he ends up paying for most of the meals Obito drags him too.

Obito doesn’t feel remorse. He’s not even a genin yet- he has no income to speak of.

* * *

 _Why do you go to the memorial stone?_ He asks, tactless as always, one day. He immediately flinches from his once question and scrambles to take it back but the man speaks before he can get even the first syllable of ‘sorry’ out.

 _To apologize_ , the man says simply. Obito bites his lip, unwilling to pry more than he already had, but...

_Why are you ‘pologizing?_

_...I was responsible for their deaths_ , the man says solemnly, sadly.

 _Did you kill ‘em yourself?_ Obito pushes, because this isn’t right. The man gives him a searching look and whatever he finds in Obito must convince him.

 _No,_ he says.

 _Then you aren’t responsible_ , Obito says firmly. The man smiles but it’s not happy.

 _If only things were so simple,_ the shinobi murmurs. Obito doesn’t see why they’re not.

* * *

He gets closer to the man, mostly because he worries for the guy. He doesn’t seem to exist away from the memorial stone unless Obito _drags_ him away. So, he convinces (bullies) the man into coming over to his house fairly regularly so he can shove food into the annoying, stubborn shinobi’s arms.

In return, the man surprises Obito by offering to help with training. It’s nice. But it’s not _just_ shinobi training- the man pushes him to correct his abysmal writing, leaves books on strategy _everywhere_ in his house (without ever repeating a book and it’s honestly sort of impressive), poisons and medicines, and the language of _flowers,_ of all things.

The man knows a wide-range of jutsus in most of the chakra types (he’s the worst at doton and Obito thinks that might be because the man has raiton chakra, like how suiton is hard for him because he’s a katon-user) and doesn’t hesitate to help Obito learn the lower-ranked ones in his arsenal. The man insists that Obito knows at least one in every chakra type and the suiton was just a _pain_ to learn.

The man also teaches him to turn his proficiency in pranks into a talent for traps, which Obito finds endlessly fun. Especially when he catches the man in one of his traps, that’s always hilarious.

Maybe he _can_ understand his clan’s emphasis on love, even if it’s only a little.

* * *

 _Nii-san_ , he lets slip, one day. The man freezes, blinking one wide, gray eye. He turns to Obito, who is just as frozen with surprise (and horror).

 _What... did you call me?_ The man asks slowly. Like that was some sort of signal, Obito turned red, shaking his head wildly. Before he can take the word back, however, mischief is already sparking in the man’s eye. He pounces, wrapping Obito into a suffocating hug and cries huge, fake tears. Obito curses and hisses threats, struggling in the man’s iron grip. It is all in vain. He’s trapped. He’s trapped and he’s gonna die. If not from lack of air, then from embarrassment. This is it for him.

(He ignores the _real_ tears in his eyes and the way he clings tightly to the man- his nii-san.

He ignores the way the man clings back just as tightly.)

* * *

His nii-san is stopping the bullies. He doesn’t know how. He hasn’t seen the man anywhere in the Uchiha compound unless Obito drags him through the place. Even then he’s tense and clearly uncomfortable. Because of that, Obito doesn’t generally make his nii-san go anywhere but Obito’s own house, on the edge of the compound.

He didn’t even know that his nii-san had found out about the bullies. He had been sure to never let anything about it slip. His nii-san’s overprotectiveness is annoying but also... comforting in a way. That someone cares enough about him to go through the trouble of scaring bullies away...

(He’s just a burden. Always a burden. He can’t do anything right. He struggles at staying still, at listening, at doing what he’s told. He’s an Uchiha without the sharingan and what does that make him?

A failure. It makes him a failure.

He doesn’t deserve his nii-san’s kindness and easy acceptance. He’s doesn’t deserve his _nii-san_. He hadn’t even given the man a choice in the matter, he _made_ the man be his nii-san. What kind of a person does that make him?)

* * *

The jounin Obito is assigned to is Namikaze Minato- Konoha’s very own Yellow Flash. Minato-sensei is nice. Like his nii-san, Minato-sensei doesn’t get annoyed or angry if he has to explain something in a different way for him to get the hang of it. Rin is on his team, too, which is... odd. Don’t get him wrong, he’s happy to have his crush so near but it’s hard to reconcile his blind adoration with Rin’s actual personality, now that he knows her better.

Then there’s Hatake Kakashi. He has the same silvery-white hair his nii-san does, the same stormy grey eyes, and the same dark mask. He may be dense but he’s not an _idiot_. At first, he thinks the two must be related. What other answer could there be? But then Kakashi will say or do something too reminiscent of his nii-san or Minato-sensei with slip and mention Kakashi’s status as an orphan with no family and he’s forced to wonder. Who, exactly, is his nii-san? This man that he had adopted into his family.

What’s his nii-san’s name?

Minato-sensei brings up Obito’s fighting style one day, wondering about it. Apparently he fights strangely. Like he’s lacking depth perception. Sometimes he does a move meant to be done with another person. He’s never noticed this about his fighting style, before. He blames it on his nii-san. After all, that’s where he learned most of his moves.

He hunts down his nii-san, eventually, intent on answers.

 _What’s your name?_ He asks. He gets a cheeky ‘nii-san’ in response. _You’re a Hatake, right?_ He adds. His nii-san had paused, eyes narrowing. The man had hummed and muttered some bullshit excuse.

 _There”s only one Hatake left,_ he had said to his nii-san before dropping the conversations. Some things should be known, he knows, but not spoken. This, he would imagine, is one of those things.

* * *

Obito is surprisingly okay with dying. He beat some sense into Kakashi, he saved Rin. He’ll always be able to help and protect them in some capacity, since Kakashi has one of his sharingan. He’s not happy or even content but he’s okay with it. He can barely breath under the weight of the boulder. He’s surely bleeding out but he can’t really feel anything beyond a few pinpricks of sharp pain where his skin pulls too tight.

Minato-sensei will be heartbroken. So will Rin and Kakashi. The three of them have each other, though, and he had told Kakashi to look after Rin. That, at least, should give the Hatake something to cling to, to keep his head above the water so to speak. His nii-san, though. His nii-san doesn’t have anyone, as far as he knows, beyond the memorial stone and it’s carved names.

When he wakes, he’s surprised. He had expected to die, after all. He finds himself filled with relief when he recognizes Konoha’s hospital, recognizes the harried medics he can only just see from his bed. He smiles, because Kakashi is out like a light in one of the visitor chairs, collapsed on Obito’s bed in a position that looks far from comfortable. Rin is on his other side, just as uncomfortable-looking in her sleep. Minato-sensei is blinking at him, wide-eyed, staring at Obito like he’s seen a ghost. Obito just grins, ignoring the way it pulls at the scars undoubtedly covering his face.

* * *

Obito pushes for the three of them to be a permanent team. He can’t be separated from his team, not after Kanabi. He’s not sure he’d survive it. He couldn’t get Minato-sensei added into their team but that’s not for lack of trying. In his free time, he hunts down his nii-san. The man is just as blasé as ever and that, in some odd way, is comforting. His nii-san is a constant in a way nothing else in his life is.

His team is always changing. To remain static would be to court death and Obito has had enough of that, thank you very much. The New Sannin, they’re called. Obito thinks it’s stupid since there’s only three Sannin and he doesn’t want to ride on someone else’s fame. Anyway, they’re not frontline fighters. Oh, Obito could be and Kakashi could _pretend_ to be but they are undoubtedly better at reconnaissance and spying and assassination and the more shinobi-like parts of being a shinobi.

The one thing he hadn’t expected was the whole living-together thing. It’s not an unwelcome surprise, though. Obito is hardly ignorant to his own feelings. Uchihas love possessively, after all, and more deeply than any other. And oh, does he love his team.

He understands, now, why Kakashi might have decided breaking time was appropriate.


	3. Grey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They find their salvation in each other and in Fūinjutsu notes left in the rubble that was once Uzushio.

Blood soaks the ground and air. You breath in more ash then oxygen and the lack of trees in what was once a forest made of mokuton is astonishing. Cataclysmic. There few people left alive in this wasteland of a word. Everything has been devoured by raging Uchiha fires, caused by Madara himself.

Obito and Kakashi are all that remain of the once mighty Konohagakure.

They don’t count Madara, regardless of his part in the creation of the village. Nor Tobirama, a shell of a man held together by Edo Tensai and Madara’s spite. The Nidaime is a broken man, chakra bound and chained to Madara as the Uchiha razes the surface of the earth. An eternal punishment Obito and Kakashi share in, if not purposefully.

They find their salvation in each other and in Fūinjutsu notes left in the rubble that was once Uzushio. Ironically, the ruins are the only place inaccessible to Madara. A refusal to break the defensive seals, a last token of stubbornness and anger thrown out by Tobirama. Not that it will last. Nothing’s safe from the wrathful Uchiha, not really.

They take comfort when they can, small touches, brushing each others’ hair during the moments where Madara rests, offering a mockery of a human to the world. They have given up stopping the man, not with Naruto, Hashirama, Sasuke, and Sakura all buried in the earth, rotting and decomposing. Obito can’t beat him even though he was trained by him and even with Kakashi’s help they would be completely overpowered.

Instead, they search for a solution in rotting scrolls, half-invisible words, and the memory of a clan so proficient in Fūinjutsu that sealing a Bijuu was a simple matter. It’s in the deep recesses of the night, though the night is hardly different from the night when the sky is choked so heavily by ash and blood, that they find their answer.

In the end, it’s a rather innocuous scroll.

In the end, Tobirama puts up one last show of resistance for the pair of them to escape.

In the end, Kakashi and Obito wind up back at their beginning.

* * *

It was harder, in a way. Konoha bustled with a life they hadn’t seen in years. Obito had cried, that first night. He had cried for all the things he had done, all things he hadn’t. He cried for those that died because of his mistakes. He cried and sobbed because there was nothing else for him to do.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura aren’t born yet, their team has yet to form, they’re too late to prevent either of their younger selves from being orphaned. Obito had looked on all this, the _magnitude_ what they would have to do, and he allowed himself one night to let the guilt, the terror, the doubts overwhelm him. Then he buried them, forced them away, intent on their mission and their life, here.

Kakashi drew away. He curled in on himself, growing quiet and closed off. He fell back into old habits. Obito couldn’t drag him back. They were fracturing, here, with nothing to hold them together or to keep them in the present.

No matter what he tried, Obito couldn’t bring his Hatake back to him.

No matter what he tried, Kakashi couldn’t shake the memories and fears of his past.

* * *

The Hokage doesn’t believe them, at first. That’s to be expected. Their story is hardly a believable one. They don’t tell the man everything, don’t even brush on the subject of Indra and Ashura’s endless reincarnations, but they offer all the important bits. Madara’s continued survival, the Moon Eye Plan, the scorched earth when the Uchiha wasn’t content with a simple win, the desperate, resigned search for an answer, any answer.

They almost pity the Yamanaka shoved into their memories.

The woman pulls up their worst memories. Kakashi’s breath shutters as Sakumo’s suicide is pulled forward first, Obito flinches away from the abuse he had suffered at the hands of those supposed to be his family. Neither of them can watch or listen to the memories of Minato and Rin, pulling away from their own minds as much as they could with a Yamanaka running roughshod over their shared past. Then comes the Kannabi Bridge Mission and Obito’s rescue at the hands of Madara and Zetsu. Kakashi’s spiral down into depression plays out moments before they’re shoved into the memory of Rin’s death.

(Obito tries to shove away the instinctual rage at the memory but Madara’s manipulations, _Zetsu’s_ manipulations, run deep, and he can’t quite stymie it completely.)

Minato’s death, the breaking of the Sannin, the Akatsuki and Hanzō and Danzo, Obito’s and Danzo’s shared part in the fall of the Uchiha clan, the treatment of Naruto, Hiruzen’s death, Tsunade’s return, Sasuke and Orochimaru, Sai and Root, the Fourth Shinobi War.

The taste of ash and blood heavy on their tongues as they fail. Obito’s anguish and rage when he finally rips himself from Madara’s side. Edo Tensai used to bring Hashirama, Tobirama, Minato, and Hiruzen back. It’s too little, too late. The Konoha thirteen are fractured and broken, most dead. Madara and Hashirama’s battle, Naruto and Sasuke the only ones capable of stepping in to help the shodaime.

A lucky blow bringing Sasuke to his knees. Naruto’s scream, almost overtaken by Sakura’s. Hashirama’s sacrifice to protect Naruto in the blonde’s distraction. Obito and Kakashi working together to force a retreat with as few casualties on their side as possible.

They had to leave Sasuke’s body behind.

The Alliance falling, one by one, in battle. Towns, decimated. Konoha, flattened with prejudice. Minato and Hiruzen falling in battle, fighting side-by-side with the whirlwind of a Suna Kunoichi named Temari. The kunochi, unable to hold up without allies by her side. Tobirama’s capture soon after.

Obito and Kakashi, making it past Uzushio’s wards only by the grasping power of the Kamui. Their desperate search for anything that could help as their few remaining allies perish in battle. The almost peaceful serenity of the ruins. The scroll, found only by a sudden strike of luck. Tobirama’s last, desperate stand and they make their escape to an entirely different time.

The Yamanaka pulls from their minds, horror in her eyes. She retches at the memories. The cloying smell of burnt flesh lingers in their noses, screams echo in their ears, but they are long used to such things, doing no more then pressing closer together. One of the few dwindling signs of affection Kakashi allows. Obito wonders abstractly what he’s done to push his Hatake away again, after he had made broken-hearted amends on a war-torn plain.

He isn’t sure the place had begun as a plain.

With the Yamanaka’s confirmation, given when the woman manages to collect herself, the Hokage believes them. He demands details, details they can’t (won’t, shouldn’t, couldn’t) give. They’re given access to the village, unable to leave, with Anbu (and root, though the Hokage is unaware of that point) guards. It’s better than they expected and Obito is grateful they’re given this period to re-acclimate themselves to this time. Kakashi just wants to sleep, to visit the memorial stone, to grieve for the family he had never been able to in their future.

* * *

 _Your younger self seems to have adopted me_ , Kakashi says suddenly, one day. Obito pauses, turning to his partner curiously. This is the first time he’s initiated a conversation and Obito can only hope that means he’s finally getting over whatever hesitance has gripped him since they arrived back in time.

 _He feeds me,_ the silver-haired man elaborates. _And I think he’s trying to herd me back to his house for a proper meal like some sort of stray cat._ Obito can hold back the amused snort at Kakashi’s insulted look.

 _Well your younger self is... surprisingly possessive_ , he offers in returns. Kakashi smiles softly, moving to better talk with Obito. And talk they do. It’s mostly Obito but he doesn’t have to push for a response like he has been. It’s nice. They’re not back to the quiet understanding, the conversations held in touch and in their eyes but, at the same time, they never stopped in the first place. It just... turned strained. Hesitant. Unsure.

 _I’m sorry_ , Kakashi murmurs hours later, in the black of night. Obito doesn’t ask what for. He doesn’t reject the apology or acknowledge it. He just pulls his Hatake closer, hiding his smile in soft silvery hair.


End file.
